


A Tough Heart to Swallow

by Vullardqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Cannibalism, Sorry y'all this is way fucked up, Taako/Magnus - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-25 16:29:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14382537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vullardqueen/pseuds/Vullardqueen
Summary: In a cycle where food is scarce, Taako is forced to face a situation he never, ever thought he would have to go through.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Only 100% consensual, needed-to-survive, non-kinky cannibalism here, yessir.

Taako and Lup tried to pretend this was normal. That this was something they did every day. That it was okay.  
Taako was trying to pretend that it was normal for him to grab the ankles of Magnus' dead body, and help Lup drag it down to the lower parts of the ship no one but Davenport saw all that often.  
Not that it mattered. Davenport was gone too.  
He tried to ignore how cold, and thin they felt.  
Together, they pulled him up onto a table and Lup took a knife from her hip.  
"...well." She started, staring at Magnus' body with slightly hollow and glazed eyes. "…who wants to do the honors?"  
Taako held out his hand. "…if you call it an honor." He muttered.  
Lup placed the knife in his hand handle first, and stepped back to lean against the wall and just watch. She didn't want to watch but…what else was she going to do?  
The first thing Taako did was cut his clothes away, rolling him over to make sure all of the clothes came off. His gut wrenched at how light Magnus was. This was so…wrong.  
When he got them off, he handed them over to Lup. "…Can you lay all the clothes out on the floor?" He asked, attempting to keep his voice steady. "Under where were g..going to hang him. And some cardboard."  
Lup simply nodded, doing as Taako asked.  
Then, the real work started. Taako pressed the knife first at his collarbone, cutting down to the bottom of his sternum, he cringed as the knife scraped his ribs and sternum. He wasn't a surgeon, he didn't have the precision to do this right….but then again, it didn't matter.  
This wasn't surgery.  
This was butchering.  
He cut from the bottom of his sternum all the way down to his groin and then sat the knife aside. "Hey, Lup?" He asked, "Uh…I need some help."  
Lup dropped the cardbaord on the floor beneath their makeshift meat hook and walked over to the table. "…yeah?"  
"I need to um…I gotta pull the skin back and pin it…" He said, grabbing a long nail they had stowed away somewhere in the maintenance room. They needed all their knives. "…this is the best we got. Can you…?"  
"Yeah, yeah." Lup said very regretfully, and in silence they cut and pinned the skin back to reveal the inner organs.  
Taako took a long, shuddering breath. He just had to hold himself together. He had to. This was to save the others, Magnus wanted this.  
He grabbed the bone saw lying next to the knife he used to cut him open and started to work on removing his ribs to get to the lungs and heart and upper intestines.  
He clenched his jaw as he sawed through the ribs and sternum, trying to ignore the crackling and all of the blood and fluids getting all over his hands.  
With one big jerk, he pulled the ribs free, revealing his lungs, and liver and…  
…and his heart.  
The heart he listened to as he rested his head against his chest at night.  
The heart that he felt beat so fast when they first kissed.  
The heart that loved Taako so much.  
Taako reached in, and cut it away from his chest, and held it up, still slightly warm blood spilling over his hand and down onto his arms.  
"You know A…Aunt used to say th-that…the heart was the best part." He said with a distant smile, rapidly blinking away tears.  
".…yeah I remember that." Lup said. "You remember her old recipe?"  
"...yep." Taako said, placing the heart aside for later.  
He took out the entire intestine block out. Lup made a comment about how they should be thankful they didn't have to run his intestines, but…there was nothing in them anyways. You had to have food for that.  
He simply dumped them in the trash, only saving the liver and kidneys and took out the lungs, dumping them as well. They saved what they could, they had to make use of everything.  
What was left was a hollow version of Magnus that Taako could pick up himself and get it up on the hook. He took one of the knives sitting on the table and handed it to Lup. "…come on, start on his right side and I'll skin the left."  
Lup nodded, and together they started the gruesome task.  
It made a horrible ripping noise as the skin separated from the muscle that made Taako's stomach turn, and he barely avoided emptying his own stomach.  
Together, they slowly ripped and cut the skin away from the muscle, taking all of it off and throwing it aside. For a second, Lup started to drag all of the skin to the trashcan but Taako quickly called out for her to stop.  
"...why?? We can't eat his skin Taako."  
"Merle was talking about drying it out for some uh…leather. Something to wear…"  
Lup opened her mouth, blinked a few times at Magnus' flayed skin before simply putting it by the heart and liver and kidneys they'd saved.  
Now the two of them were just looking at what was left of Magnus. He wasn't even recognizable, he was just…meat at this point.  
Taako silently started to cut parts of him away. He took thighs and calves, and what was left of his ribs. Biceps and triceps and basically anything he could get. They needed anything and everything.  
Every piece of meat he got off of Magnus he placed on the now blood soaked table, until all what was left of Magnus was sinew and tendons and bones.  
They'd taken everything they could from him.  
Taako had to continually remind himself, that this is what Magnus wanted.  
"…okay Lup, help me carry all this up." He said, wrapping some of it up in some wrap and piling it up in his arms before making his way back to the upper decks.  
As he and Lup made their way to the kitchen they passed by the still living crew members. Merle stared at the tightly wrapped meat in their hands with a look of shock. Barry took one glance at it, and was immediately sick. Lucretia buried her face in her hands, her now thin and brittle white hair shrouding even her hands.  
Taako looked straight ahead. He kicked the freezer open with his hands, and placed the meat inside.  
He tried to pretend it wasn't the man he loved most.  
He tried to pretend it wasn't Magnus.  
He tried to pretend this was normal.  
Even if he could barely choke down the heart they had for dinner. Even if he didn't sleep for days. Even if he had nightmares when he did.  
..he tried to pretend.  
He had to.  
This was the new normal.


	2. Hunger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus angst for all your angst needs.

"Hey, Lup?" Taako said softly as he walked into Lup's room on the star blaster. He held a small plate of food in his hands. "…I brought you something."  
"Don't want it." Lup muttered almost immediately. She had her back to Taako, curled up in bed where she had been for the last couple of weeks since Barry's death.  
"Yeah I know you don't want it. I don't exactly want it either but--"  
"Don't. Want. It." Lup growled.  
"You're going to starve to death."  
"That's fine as long as I don't have to eat him." Lup spat. "…I'm not even hungry."  
Taako sat the plate down on her bedside table along with a glass of water. "…can you at least drink some water?"  
"Not thirsty."  
"Come on Lup you haven't eaten or drank anything in a week." Taako said. "…what about getting up? Can you at least get up? We'll get some new clothes or something."  
Lup sighed, and with great annoyance written all over her face she slowly made herself sit up, holding herself up with trembling arms.  
"Hey there you go," Taako said with as much optimism as one can muster in a situation like this. "Now swing your legs over the edge…"  
"I know how to get out of bed, Taako." Lup said with an eye roll, and after placing her feet on the ground she tried her hardest to get out of bed. Once she got up on her feet, her legs buckled from beneath her and she would have tumbled to the ground if it weren't for Taako besides her to catch her.  
"--woah Lup...having trouble standing?" Taako asked as he pulled her back up to the bed.  
".…I guess so…."  
"Maybe it's because you haven't eaten in a week or two." Taako said, grabbing the plate from the bedside table.  
"And I'm not going to eat." Lup growled, eyeing the plate like it was full of poison.  
"Listen it's--"  
"It's Barry, Taako."  
"I know it's Barry but he died because he wanted us to survive. He wanted YOU to survive!" Taako nearly yelled. He was getting frustrated, and worried and…  
..and scared.  
Of course the twins had seen times where food was this scarce, they grew up starving. But Taako had never seen times where Lup was so weak she couldn't even stand.  
"Lup…" He said, his voice shaking. "…you're going to starve to death."  
"That's fine." She said, "I'll see you next cycle Taako."  
Then she used the rest of her strength to crawl back into bed, where she stayed. No matter how much food Taako brought her, she refused it.  
Eventually, she wasn't hungry or thirsty, she just didn't feel it anymore. Taako watched as her skin became dry and cracked, and her hair brittle and thin. When he talked to her, she didn't respond at all. She wouldn't move.  
Until one day early in the morning when Taako had nodded off sitting besides her bed, she slipped into a coma and two days later, she was simply gone, leaving only he, Merle and Lucretia on the ship to succumb to the same fate by the end of the year.  
Lucretia was next, she died as Merle and Taako held her hands standing by her bed.  
Merle died on his own a day before the hunger came for them.  
Soon it was only Taako, standing on the deck of the Star Blaster watching the Hunger come for them.  
If he could have, he would have smiled at the Irony.


	3. The Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako meets his family once again.

After the starvation cycle, and after Taako escaped the hunger he was overwhelmed with joy to see his crew again. All of them were strong and healthy and happy. Lup tackled him in a hug, and kissed Barry hello. Merle and Davenport embraced and Lucretia smiled once more.  
Magnus came to Taako as soon as he could and pulled him into a hug. "Heeyy Taako!" He said, kissing his head.  
"Hey Magnus...God I missed you…" Taako whispered, leaning his head against his chest.  
"I missed you too!" Magnus replied with a smile in his voice. "Hey, hey you know what I missed most when I was gone?"  
"Hmm.…" Taako hummed, and looked up at him.  
Then, Magnus moved in for a kiss.  
The moment their lips met, Taako was only filled with dread. He saw Magnus, laying on that table, intestines exposed. He saw him hanging upside down, skin on the floor.  
He tasted the heart of the man he loved.  
He jerked away, his stomach lurching as he threw up bile onto the Star Blaster's steel floor.  
"--o-oh my god, Taako??" Magnus yelled, rushing to his side to pull his hair out of his face, but the contact only made Taako puke again.  
"Back off, back off--" Came Barry's voice as he rushed to pull Magnus away.  
Taako looked up, and when he saw Barry all he saw were the same horrifying images, and panic forced his stomach to lurch once again.  
Even seeing his sister threw him into panic. He could only think of the last cycle.  
Finally, Lucretia pulled Taako into a hug, stroking his long blonde hair and whispering comforts.  
"That cycle is over, Taako." She whispered. "Rest assured, we will never do that again…were going to…" She faltered. "…were going to forget about it."  
Taako slowly nodded and pulled himself away and to his feet.  
"I guess we should see what kind of world we landed in now." He said with a sniffle, and moved to the window. All seven of them did, and together they found themselves looking down on the city of Neverwinter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to the person who said I should do this u was right

**Author's Note:**

> I told you it was 100% consensual, needed-to-survive, non-kinky cannibalism.


End file.
